real life interruptions that have taken us away from normal doings. I couldn't decide what image to display so of course I take that as an excuse to be a grandmother and brag about how wonderful my Jordan is by displaying a pictures. I titled this first picture "I love you this much", the second one is "Bear kisses", the third one is "Luvin' Jade"Saturday, we spent the morning butchering chickens and cleaning up around the farm, mowing grass, etc., and then Saturday evening we had a NWGAA star party. It was a good meet-up, with two new members and their families visiting the field. The clouds dampened the viewing, but the company was good. I now have about 50 pounds of chicken in the freezer and about 38 birds left, 17 in the main coop and 21 in the old coop. I still have a few roosters to dispatch when they mature a bit, and I'll probably sell some more hens, but I envision a flock of about 25 birds or so when all is said and done. Today, I got 11 eggs, several were pullet eggs, which always amaze me. Soon, I will be awash in eggs. I hope I can sell them. On the way to town last week I saw a sign that read "Fresh Eggs $5 dozen" I hope *that* price holds! I usually sell mine for $2 dozen.
Sunday, we visited our daughter and granddaughter, and from her house, headed south to visit my father in law in the hospital, down to the Atlanta area. He had his cancer surgery and is recovering as expected. I've also had two doctor's appointments since I last blogged, saw my PCP today and my rheumatologist last week. I got some refills for our epi-pens, an appointment with a podiatrist, and of course a general checkup. I'll be waiting on my lab results, but the good news is that I am losing weight. The dietary changes I've made are working! I'm hopeful that as we ride our bikes more, even more pounds will come off.
Since life has been a bit stressful, my RA has been flaring more than usual, but at least my allergies are not as distracting as last year. I'm trying to stay positive about things as I am finally believing, I mean truly believing, that attitude affects health. I suppose I've always believed that, but have never actively made a conscious effort to NOT be negative or to not worry about things. With no immune system to speak of, I could worry about all sorts of things, like catching a cold from being at the hospital, a re-emergence of MRSA in my body, or catching swine flu, but I'm making the decision to focus on all the positive things I am doing-eating healthier, losing weight, getting the right mix of vitamins, minerals, and anti-oxidants, and exercising.Last week, while Skyguy was in a waiting room reading a newspaper, he saw an ad for a local breeder of shelties. After a brief discussion, it appears that we may have a new sheltie baby before 2010 rolls around. I contacted the breeder and we will be headed over the mountain to meet with her and see her dogs tomorrow evening. We will also need to discuss pricing so we can start saving money to buy the pup, etc. She will be breeding two of her bitches in the late summer and fall, so we are hopeful that between the two litters, the right puppy for us will be born. Take a few minutes to Ooh and Aah over the Shelties:
http://hornmtnshelties.com/
The remaining block of time has been spent gardening, planting flowers, watering in the seeds I've already sown, weeding, harvesting, etc. The Michihili cabbage is no more as I either ate it, froze it, or gifted it. I needed the space in the bed for peppers. It never did head up properly, but the quality was good nonetheless. I've eaten about a third of the Pak choy, taking two heads to my daughter. It looks like flea beetles are starting to attack it, so I need to cut the rest of it and bring it in. I love the stuff, so I will definitely plant more for the fall garden. I really wish I could freeze it and have it retain it's texture after being frozen. We are eating salad every day, mixing all the lettuces and spinach and greens. I throw in a few violet leaves, and soon I'll be adding nasturtiums and other flowers. To round off the salad I add asparagus shoots, broccoli florets, radishes, carrots, alfalfa sprouts, black olives, and we split a boiled egg. I'd love cheese and meat in it, too, but I'm staying away from that. I do, however, have some leftover grilled chicken, and since that is a healthy meat, I'm tempted to slice it and add that to tomorrow's dinner salad.
I got distracted there and started talking about food instead of gardening, but it is hard to grow food without talking about how good it is to eat! At any rate, I do have some sweet corn coming up, as well as about half of the pole beans. My tire stack is 4 tires tall and the potatoes are growing like mad. I sure hope they produce well. It is nice to be able to water the garden. With the old well, we barely had enough water for household use, but since we got the new well 16 months ago, the supply is more than I could have dreamed. I still don't waste water. I water by hand and only in the planted areas, not the paths, and I try to reduce the evaporative loss. I watch the weather and I won't water if there is a chance of rain. I have a rainwater catchment tank that I used to water from-it's a 330 gallon tank that catches water from the barn roof-but right now I need a new hose for it. I need to come up with a way to poke holes in a hose that will allow gravity fed water to seep from the hose. I think using some kind of metal straw to puncture the hose would work, but I have no idea of what I would use for that or practically how to accomplish what I envision.
We are going on a short vacation soon, and I have to get the rest of my tomatoes and peppers and squash in the ground and the pole beans strung before we leave. I started running string this evening, and tomorrow my friend is coming over to help with that. Maybe she will take some Pak Choi as payment. In a garden, there is always some task to do, and my vacation clock is ticking away. Last night, we spent time weeding Bermuda grass from the herb bed. While we were out and about this past weekend, Skyguy bought me a very nice lemon verbena plant. I'd been wanting another one since I stupidly killed the first one I had 20 years ago. That happened when I was first getting into herb gardening-a friend gave me a 3 foot tall shrub and I did not realize that it was a *deciduous* plant/tree and tossed it mid-winter thinking it was dead-DOH! This one is small, only about a foot tall, but it definitely has that heavenly lemon scent. We also bought salad burnett, summer savory(to go with all the beans), tricolor sage, purple sage, chocolate peppermint, horehound and anise hyssop. The herb bed is starting to come together. Seeds have sprouted and the seedlings are growing. The seedlings are small, two inch tall chives and basil, for example, but they will mature quickly.
